> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://barna.news/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Report says Catalan daily use falls to 34% in Barcelona - URL: https://barna.news/report-says-catalan-daily-use-falls-to/ - Published: 2026-10-02T08:27:56.000Z - Updated: 2026-10-02T08:27:56.000Z - Description: Unpublished results from Barcelona’s 2026 Municipal Services Survey, reported by Nació, put Catalan at 34% as a habitual language and Spanish at 56%. - Author: Barna.News - Tags: culture Catalan is the habitual language of 34% of Barcelona residents, down from 35% in 2025, according to unpublished findings from the city’s 2026 Municipal Services Survey [reported by Nació](https://naciodigital.cat/societat/el-pes-del-catala-com-a-llengua-habitual-torna-a-caure-a-barcelona.html?ref=barna.news). The survey has not yet been formally presented by Barcelona City Council. The reported result continues a decline from 39% in 2021\. For residents seeking to use or learn Catalan, the city’s response includes a larger number of places on courses run by the Consortium for Language Normalisation, the public body that provides Catalan classes for adults. ## Spanish remains the most common habitual language The survey of 6,000 people puts Spanish at 56% as residents’ habitual language, one percentage point higher than a year earlier. Other languages accounted for 10%, the same share reported in 2025. The figures reported by Nació show Catalan was not the leading habitual language in any of the settings surveyed. Its share was closest to Spanish in conversations with Barcelona City Council staff, at 41.6% for Catalan and 49.5% for Spanish. - Within families, 27.9% reported using Catalan habitually, compared with 50.7% for Spanish. - In bars and restaurants, 23.1% reported using Catalan and 64.7% Spanish. - Among residents aged 25 to 34, 18.8% reported Catalan as their habitual language, the lowest rate among the age groups cited. The largest annual fall was among people aged over 74, where the reported share fell from 53% to 48.8%. Small increases were recorded among 45 to 54-year-olds, from 32.6% to 33.1%, and among 55 to 64-year-olds, from 41.9% to 42.3%. --- ## Course places increase under the city’s language plan The findings coincide with a lower share of residents who say they have lived in Barcelona all their lives: 33%, compared with more than half in 2005\. The proportion who have lived in the city for fewer than five years has reached 21%, the highest figure in the series cited by Nació. Barcelona has a language action plan and has appointed a commissioner for Catalan to lead it. One stated measure is an increase in places to learn the language through the Consortium for Language Normalisation, from 23,500 to 35,500 places during the current academic year, following an expansion over two years. The Consortium is one of the public providers of Catalan courses for adults in Catalonia, including migrants, according to research by James Simpson and Anne Whiteside. The reported survey results have not yet been published by Barcelona City Council. --- *Primary sources:* [*idescat.cat*](https://www.idescat.cat/pub/?geo=mun%3A080193&id=eulp&lang=en&n=20846&ref=barna.news)*. Reported by naciodigital.cat, James Simpson and Anne Whiteside, ddd.uab.cat, Mireia Vargas-Urpi.*